---
id: vasily-sutaev
recordStatus: draft
liveStatus: new
type: person
title: Vasily Sutaev
titleEn: Vasily Sutaev
titleRu: Василий Кириллович Сютаев
nameAlternatives:
  - name: "V. K. Sutaev"
    type: variant
    language: en
  - name: "Syutaev"
    type: transliteration
    language: en
description: "A peasant of Torzhok whom Tolstoy visited in 1881, while A Confession was being written, and named as a Christian in deed."
birthDate: ""
birthDateOldStyle: ""
birthDateApproximate: false
deathDate: ""
deathDateOldStyle: ""
deathDateApproximate: false
nationality: Russian
roles:
  - interlocutor
occupation:
  - peasant
relationToTolstoy: acquaintance
relationshipDescription: "A peasant Tolstoy visited at Torzhok in 1881 and said he agreed with in everything."
periodOfContact:
  from: "1881"
  to: ""
  notes: "Visit at Torzhok before 5 October 1881 (OS), per the diary. Later contact not covered by this dive."
relatedWorks:
  -
    id: confession
    role: interlocutor
relatedArticles:
  - leo-tolstoy
themes:
  - Tolstoy's circle 1881–82
  - peasant faith
identifiers:
  wikidata: ""
fieldSources:
  periodOfContact:
    -
      sourceId: jubilee-edition
      volume: "49"
      page: "58"
      notes: "Diary, 5 October 1881 (OS)."
---

<span lang="ru">Василий Кириллович Сютаев</span> was a peasant whom Tolstoy visited at Torzhok in the autumn of 1881, in the years he was writing [[A Confession]] (1879–82). He appears in the diary and letters of the move to Moscow, beside [[Nikolai Fyodorov]], as one of the few people Tolstoy found living by the teaching he was then working out.

## The 1881 visit

The diary entry of 5 October 1881 (OS), which opens on the move to Moscow as the most painful month of his life, ends: "Was at Torzhok at Sutaev's, a consolation."[^1]

In a letter of mid to late November 1881 to [[Vasily Alekseev]], Tolstoy names the people he has found in Moscow, Fyodorov first among them, and then adds: "I also went to see Sutaev. Also a Christian, and in deed." Of his gospel synthesis (the Short Exposition of the Gospel) he writes that Orlov and Fyodorov had read it and that they were of one mind; "with Sutaev, in everything, down to the smallest details."[^2]

## Later mention

In a long letter to [[Mikhail Engelhardt]] of late 1882 or early 1883, arguing that education adds nothing to a person, Tolstoy points to Sutaev: "an illiterate peasant", whose influence on people and on the intelligentsia was "greater and more significant than that of all Russian scholars and writers".[^3]

## Open questions

- The <abbr title="Полное собрание сочинений — the 90-volume Jubilee edition of the complete works">PSS</abbr> notes to both letters (note 8 in the Alekseev letter, note 20 in the Engelhardt letter) are not in the dive's extracts. Sutaev's dates, his home village, and what his own teaching was are not documented in these sources.
- The dossier lists a photograph (Y. Steinberg, 1885, Wikimedia Commons) and gives his death as 1892 in a rights note. Both are from Commons, not from the PSS — check.

## Dive provenance

- [1879-1882-a-confession](../works/non-fiction/personal-papers/1879-1882-a-confession/index.md) — the 1881 diary entry and the letters to V. I. Alekseev (1881) and M. A. Engelhardt (1882–83), 2026-10-02.

[^1]: <span lang="ru">«Был в Торжке у Сютаева, утешенье.»</span> (PSS 49:58, diary, 5 October 1881 OS). English: ours.

[^2]: <span lang="ru">«Еще был я у Сютаева.»</span>; <span lang="ru">«Тоже христианин и на деле.»</span>; <span lang="ru">«…читали и Орлов, и Федоров и мы единомышленны. С Сютаевым во всем до малейших подробностей.»</span> (PSS 63:80–83, letter to V. I. Alekseev, 15–30? November 1881 OS). English: ours.

[^3]: <span lang="ru">«Вы верно знаете про Сютаева.»</span>; <span lang="ru">«Вот вам безграмотный мужик, — а его влияние на людей, на нашу интеллигенцию больше и значительнее, чем всех русских ученых и писателей…»</span> (PSS 63:112–128, letter to M. A. Engelhardt, 20? December 1882 – 20? January 1883 OS). English: ours.